IT architecture-based confidentiality risk assessment in networks of organizations

Today almost every organization benefits from business opportunities created by
digitalization. Digitalization allows, among others, to develop software products on
shared platforms, to remotely access and alter patient records or remotely control power
generators. This change in the technical environment has triggered changes in the legal
environment, and introduced new compliance requirements. Consequently, protecting
the confidentiality of digital information assets has become a major concern for many
organizations. This concern is even bigger for organizations that connect their IT system
with other organizations to reduce costs.
Risk assessment methodologies provide stakeholders with sound knowledge on
security risks that threaten the business. A risk assessment method should satisfy three
conflicting requirements: accuracy, cost-efficiency, and inter-subjectivity. These three
requirements form the dilemma of confidentiality risk assessment methods. Accuracy
has to do with the level of granularity that a method allows when assessing the risk.
Cost-efficiency is the crucial real limitation of all risk assessment methods. In practice,
even risk assessments of large and information-intensive company sections rarely last
longer than two weeks. The third requirement we look at in this dissertation is intersubjectivity.
Nowadays, despite the large use of standardized methods, the very result
of a risk assessment is largely subjective, in the sense that other assessors may assess
risks differently. This lack of inter-subjectivity means that risk assessments are difficult
to replicate and risk assessment results are not comparable.